African Journal of
Business Management

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Bus. Manage.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1993-8233
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJBM
  • Start Year: 2007
  • Published Articles: 4187

Full Length Research Paper

Using AHP and ANP approaches for selecting improvement projects of Iranian Excellence Model in healthcare sector

  Elahe Shariatmadari Serkani1*, Mostafa Mardi2, Esmaeel Najafi3, Khadijeh Jahanian3 and Ali Taghizadeh Herat3        
  1Department of Industrial Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. 2Department of Management, Islamic Azad University, Tehran Central Branch, Iran. 3Department of Management and Economics, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran.
Email: [email protected]

  •  Accepted: 22 May 2013
  •  Published: 21 June 2013

Abstract

 

Healthcare has a long tradition in developed methods and models to assess the quality of work. There have been several models presented for deployment and assessment of quality management which much more attention is paid to organization excellence models due to their being total and complete. The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model can be used for continuous improvement of activities and performance of organizations from both private and public sector by establishing a Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy. Iran national productivity and excellence award in collaboration with Azad University – Science and Research campus and ministry of health, treatment and medical training, designed a model for healthcare organizations and this model was used in 23 hospitals. The study was based on experience gained in hospitals, to rank the improvement projects using Analytic Network Process (ANP) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methods. The objective of this paper is to present the results of the application of AHP and ANP to select a project within the field of healthcare in Iran. Project number nine “Leadership Development and Succession Planning” got the highest score, and it is the most appropriate choice.

 

Key words: European Foundation for Quality Management, multi-criteria decision methods, analytic hierarchy process, analytic network process, health sector.